1. Field of the Invention
The present invention is related to a puncturing type cable coupling apparatus, and more particularly to a new connector design that can be installed on ends of an electric cable with no need of removing the outer jacket to expose the copper wire, and be able to function like a regular plug and receptacle.
2. Description of Related Art
Power connectors, used as an example, can be typically classified into two types by their external forms. The connector that has two or three prong-like conductive pins on the upper portion and a molded body on the lower portion is a male connector (called a plug hereinafter), and the connector formed by a molded body with two or three pin slots on the front panel is a female connector called a receptacle hereinafter), and these two types of connectors need to be mated together to provide a host machine with electrical current.
For the majority of electronic and electrical devices, they are provided with a power cable that has a pair of connectors on two ends, even though some of them may be mainly designed to use batteries. The plug attached on one end of the cable is used to connect to a power outlet and the receptacle on the other end is to be electrically connected to the host machine. Only when the plug is inserted into a power outlet, the host machine is able to draw in electrical current from the power source for the normal operation, regardless of the location of the host machine and the distance from a power source.
In general, a conventional plug is formed with a housing and a base. Inside the housing of the plug, there are usually two or more conductive pins mounted on the base and protruding outward, and each conductive pin is connected to a terminal that is fastened to a copper wire by a screw. A similar structure is also found in a conventional receptacle.
Since the conductive pins and the copper wires in the cable are simply joined by means of fastening screws, with no other auxiliary means of clamping down the cable, when someone tries to pull out a plug or receptacle by force after using the above plug or receptacle, the strong tension being exerted on ends of the cable may cause the copper wire to break off or become loosened from the terminal joint, resulting in an open circuit.
The conventional connector has gradually been replaced by a modified connector assembly that has strengthened the cable connection and the internal construction, which is composed of a shell member, a base member and two conductive plates. The two conductive plates are parallelly installed in the base member, using a clamping means on the inner surface of the conductive plate to clamp down the copper wires, and then the shell member is fitted over the base member to complete the installation of connector assembly on ends of the cable. This design can simplify the assembly procedure of the connector and the cable.
Though the connector assembly has strengthened the construction of conventional plug and simplified the installation, like other conventional connectors, it is still necessary to remove the insulation jacket of the cable to expose the copper wire before installing these connectors on ends of a cable, and the conventionally used clamping technique is also not reliable for ensuring a stable cable connection.